Scrapings

Working largely in painting and large-scale wall drawings, Antoniak presents a suite of 7 new paintings that examine his interest in the ideas of artistic hierarchy, value and of art making itself. For a number of years, the artist has collected various left behind ephemera. Originally tester paper from the art store where he was an employee, and over time growing to include drawings recovered from public libraries, lost shopping lists, drawings made in the whitewashed windows of disused shops, and stickers on lampposts. Covered in drawings, doodles and markings, these salvaged pieces form the basis of the artist’s paintings. Throwaway, fleeting, accidental and naive mark-making, ranging from simply testing the softness of pencils to hurried note taking are rendered in time-consuming detail in paint. More recently, a simple drawing of Spiderman has formed the central motif for a body of paintings on panel. The original drawing, made quickly in marker pen, reduces the character to a handful of waspish lines toying with the boundary of recognition. The depiction is somewhat faulty, a visual shorthand that leaves the viewer to bridge the gaps in identification. The mannered approximation forms the framework for each painting, with the panel supports echoing the drawing’s outline, and the visual syntax of an unknown author becoming a diligently painted recurring motif in each work. Gradually, elements from outside this world of scavenged ephemera appeared in the paintings. Quotidian elements from the artist’s own life appear painted trompe l’oeil on the painting’s plane and compete against the quick hand scrawl. Pocket lint, coins, dried flowers, post-its, pasta have featured in previous works, all resting over the painting’s flatness. In the works on show in Scrapings, weeds, seeds from allotment plants grown and harvested, and squeezes of paint from the paint palette all disrupt, complicate and obscure the painting’s reading. These materials, gathered similarly through a lengthy process of personal accumulation, act as visual markers of time and control. They jostle on the panel with each other, and with wandering daubs of oil paint. Cumulatively, these elements in the paintings blur the distinction between creator, salvager and archiver. The works hover at the liminal edge of being; each a thoughtful study on the matter, subject and doctrine of painting, and each containing enough visual information to hold it together as a painting. Matt Antoniak (b.1991, Nottingham) lives and works in Newcastle upon Tyne. Recent exhibitions include: Photocopies II, Recent Activity, Birmingham; Sticker Book, 36, Newcastle; Dreamlands: Part II, OHSH Projects, London; EXH07, Floorr Magazine, online; Group Show, Shrine, New York, USA; Matt Antoniak (solo), Workplace Foundation, Gateshead; The Everyday Political, Southwark Park Galleries, London. He has been artist in residence at Bradford College of Art, and The Royal Drawing School at Dumfries House. His work is held in The Prince’s Trust Collection and private collections nationally Matt is also the co-director of Slugtown, a not-for-profit gallery in Newcastle, working with early career artists.